God dammit, this is a great fucking article.
Awesome.
More awesome.
In its maundering about a mythical ideal-type capitalism, libertarianism betrays its fear of actually existing capitalism, at which it cannot quite succeed. It is a philosophy of capitalist inadequacy.
Nice article, Repoman!
That’s what’s always driven me crazy about libertarianism – all that nominal pursuit of individual liberty flung headlong towards what is ultimately authoritarianism, and just plain venal tyranny. The only thing that saves them from the Rapture style hell-hole they’d create are the social institutions they so loath.
This whole thing sounds like the Ark in Brink also. Interesting stuff.
Presumably the doctors would move there and set up their own practice. If they were hand picked, it wouldn’t really be all that libertarian. No Western doctor is going to do that, the population density would be too low and the reliance on medical tourism too crazy. And doctors from developing countries with the necessary resources would set up shop in a city, where they can make money more reliably from the reference chains their local hospital provides.
As to growing food, I suppose you could do it with algae pools and fishing, although you’d run afoul of international bodies on the fishing aspect. You’d also need to import other stuff, current account deficit.
Web entrepreneurs? Lol. Do they even know how much it costs to get cables to, say, Australia? And Australia isn’t moving around (on a human scale). A boat thingy would have to rely on satellite connections, which makes realistic large scale server operation unpossible. So that puts the kibosh on webnerds who would continue to prefer areas with reliable net connections, as well as the cheap energy and huge amounts of space necessary for a modern server farm.
Most major offshore services require steady internet or phone access, low labor costs and a large number of people. I suppose you could do consulting, but that’s a tight field and you’re unlikely to compete with a first tier like McKinsey, or even a second or third tier consulting company. And without space for an airfield you’d be shit out of luck in terms of travel. Good luck finding a company willing to wait for a consultant to motorboat from the Land of Retards to an international airport before getting to them, the time constraints on modern business make that hilariously inefficient.
Design you could do, but I can’t imagine what design field would find it advantageous to move to the middle of nowhere, far from potential clients. And without reliable high speed internet access you’d have a hell of a time getting proposals to people or downloading components and tools necessary to do the job.
Then there’s electricity. You’d basically be stuck with solar or wind in renewable terms, unless you could figure out some kind of floating tidal power generator – and I think those require you to be close to an actual coastline. Solar, even when integrated with buildings, is expensive and requires a lot of space and infrastructure. Plus, you’d need to force people to follow building code and set it up – not exactly libertarian. Wind is notoriously unreliable, and you’d again be looking at using a lot of space. So, that means heinously expensive gas powered generators, another currency gobbling element. Theoretically nuclear would be an option, but lol.
Finance? Major nations have been leaning heavily on offshore finance centers with loose laws, so that’s not viable.
Entertainment? Good luck beating Hollywood and New York in an area they’ve been dominating for years.
Manufacturing? Lol. Resource extraction? Also lol.
That pretty much leaves gambling. You know, something people aren’t willing to travel to Las Vegas for. If it were off the coast of China or Taiwan or something, well, maybe it could work. But who would pick floating gambling shitbox over Macau or Vegas?
The biggest issue? People move to cities because cities offer jobs and higher quality of life than rural areas. A floating city would have too few people to sustain the number of entertainment options high powered individuals expect, and wouldn’t provide the quality of life they’re used to after living in places like New York, Paris or London. You’d be asking them to dump all their contacts, give up city life and move somewhere without high speed net, 3g phone coverage or air transit options. Good luck making that sale.
So, no really viable options for generating currency, and a whole lot of import needs ranging from medical supplies to fuel. I’m sure they’ll do great.
Don’t forget hookers and blow. Those seem like the most likely revenue sources to me.
Why would anyone go to boatland for hookers when there are probably local ones, or to Vegas for some higher quality ones.
And blow? Not hard to get in the states. Can’t imagine it’d be easy to get to a tiny floating island just off of SF. Coast guard would get pissy bout dat.
Didn’t the Minnesota Vikings try something like this?
Web entrepreneurs? Lol. Do they even know how much it costs to get cables to, say, Australia? And Australia isn’t moving around (on a human scale). A boat thingy would have to rely on satellite connections, which makes realistic large scale server operation unpossible. So that puts the kibosh on webnerds who would continue to prefer areas with reliable net connections, as well as the cheap energy and huge amounts of space necessary for a modern server farm.
Not to mention that they won’t be able to peer with the big ISPs; see also Sealand.
I love the OP’s article: “Muni is so sloooow and I hate taxes and local government is so inefficient. Let’s start a new country and let Apple run it!” Great stuff.
Well, I for one would be perfectly happy to sell them transit, so I doubt it’d be a big deal. Us backends are pipes, I’ve sold transit and servers to porn websites without batting an eye. I just wanna see how they get someone to provide transport out to a fucking boat. I mean, dear lord do you know how much those transport guys will take you for a month if you’re not in an exchange?
It’s completely unpossible.
Really, instead of floating city, wouldn’t it make more sense to buy some tiny island somewhere?
You would need to not only buy the land from property owners, but would need to actually purchase the territory from the nation which controls it, to the extent that they no longer hold sovereignty over it. This is not something which most nations are willing to do, ever.
Jesus, I just remembered why I fucking hate the entire concept of cruise ships: the rampant plagues of norovirus.
Still I guess if you were living with these other fuckers for several years, your immune systems would equalize eventually.
Gah, it really would wind up like Bioshock.
Maybe we could get a libertarian flotilla like the Quarian Migrant Fleet.
A nuclear powered floating island, large enough to contain an international airport, large docks, satellite farm, desalination plant, communication hub, infrastructure, agricultural areas, military/police and prison complex, lots of Michelin starred restaurants, bars and clubs, an 18 hole golf course and country club, luxury and worker accommodation. Easily done for $2m.
What, no?!
$2m would buy you what? A McDonalds on stilts at the most.
I think he was being sarcastic. ;)